Young Volunteer Updates from Yua

Wυntεεŋa (Good afternoon) from Yua, Ghana! We’ve been in Yua for a month and a half now, and can’t believe how fast the time is passing! As per our last blog post, we had a busy first week here, getting the ball rolling on all the activities we had planned to help the community. Now that we have almost completed all of them, we can delve deeper into the components behind them.

Upon our arrival, we realized that vaccines were of the greatest interest to community members. According to the farmers, their sheep, goats, and fowl were dying in large numbers from preventable diseases, particularly during the months of March and October. Luckily, we arrived right before the next predicted bout of illnesses, thus we spent most of our time
administering vaccinations in order to help as many Yua members as possible. Administered vaccines included: Newcastle disease for fowl, Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) for sheep and goats, and Rabies for dogs.

– Newcastle disease is a contagious viral disease, that is transmissible to humans. Unfortunately, no treatment is available for the disease, but it can be prevented through prophylactic vaccines. The vaccines administered are called I-2, which are manufactured right in Ghana! We have been able to immunize approximately 2000 fowl, which include some chickens and guinea fowl.

– PPR is a highly contagious viral disease that, in Ghana, affects mostly sheep and goats. There are no available treatments for the disease, although supportive care can be given in order to aid the animal in recovery. Unfortunately, lack of funds and resources in Yua prevent farmers from being able to afford supportive care for their affected livestock, resulting in large amounts of deaths. This is why vaccination against PPR is so important for the community. We vaccinated around 1400 sheep and goats, reaching 190 different families throughout the community.

Yuqing vaccinating goats.

Lastly, Rabies is a viral disease that is transmissible to humans, as well as other mammals, and has no treatment available. Dogs, being a large vector for rabies, are free to roam around the community, resulting in increased risks of dog bites. Recently, there has been an international focus on eradicating rabies globally by the year 2030. In order to take part of
the global initiative, we saw no better place to start than with Yua! We vaccinated 60 dogs against the virus in the community.

Nima vaccinating a puppy from Rabies.

While vaccinating, we were able to educate the farmers on the disease and give them some background on the organizations that brought us to them. Community members were very thankful, and came in large numbers to take advantage of the great project put forward through GAPNET and Veterinarians Without Borders.

Our next big project has been creating a fowl-rearing protocol in order to decrease deaths in young keets. Farmers have repeatedly mentioned losing large numbers of chicks at very young ages, and are unsure as to why. In order to come up with a solution, we set up an experiment where we raised half the chicks under optimized conditions within the means of community members, and the other half were raised under traditional methods in Yua.

Traditional methods allow the chicks and their mother to roam free throughout the day, to forage for their own food and water. At night, they are given shelter, and small amounts food and water. As they roam immediately after hatching, large amounts of chicks tend to die due to starvation, predation, exhaustion, and heat loss. In contrast, optimized conditions allow the chicks to be in an enclosed and safe area with their mother for the first two weeks of rearing. The chicks are then also provided with food and water, while the mother provides them with heat. All of these provisions allow the chicks to survive through their most vulnerable life stage. We are currently a week and a half into our experiment, and have yet to lose one chick using our optimized protocol.

Our brooding hen with some of her chicks.

On our time off, we were able to explore the area and spend time with the community. One of our most interesting adventures, has been to visit the Paga Crocodile Pond, where we met a 78 year old crocodile, and saw dozens of others. The crocodiles in Paga are not domesticated, but they maintain a positive mutual relationship with the locals of Paga.

Nima with the 78 year-old crocodile!

Our local guide, Issaka, invited us to his sister-in-laws graduation ceremony. The ceremony was quite different than what we see in North America. Rather than robes, diplomas and hand shaking, graduating in the Upper East involves a large dancing event! Family members and friends dance up to the graduates, and give them monetary gifts to start their
businesses. We had a great time listening to Ghanaian music, and seeing the locals dance.

The graduates table with family and friends.Yuqing and Grace dancing in line to present their gifts to the graduate.